We are now in the 21st century, so why is Microsoft not dominating mobile, heck, they have a monopoly on the desktop, but guess which company makes more money?

In case you did not already know, Apple makes far more money than Microsoft.

Because MS doesn't have a competing product yet. Microsoft's business plan will ultimately concur the tablet market because they'll have Dell, HP, Sony, Samsung, Motorola, and every hardware manufacturer marketing and selling hardware with Mango pre-installed on it.

I'm not saying MS will necessarily have a better product, but fierce marketing by the giants will ultimately set a standard.

Same with what's happening with the Android platform, over time Android will outnumber iOS not because it's better, but because when you go to a store you'll be bombarded with Android phones that the iPhone will be a second thought.

It's exactly what happened with the Mac since its launch in the mid 80's

As for Apple making more money than Microsoft, um, no. Apple is the largest tech company according to market cap; however, Microsoft makes a butt load more money than Apple - NPR Article -

There are plenty of $99.00 smart phones out there running android, but people are lining up in the millions around the world for an iPhone 4S. Say what you want about price, quality will always trump that.

It's exactly what happened with the Mac since its launch in the mid 80's

As for Apple making more money than Microsoft, um, no. Apple is the largest tech company according to market cap; however, Microsoft makes a butt load more money than Apple - NPR Article -

1) There is nothing similar about Apple's position in the smartphone market today and Apple's position in the 'PC' market in the 80s.

2) You pulled up an article from May 26, 2010 when Apple jumped ahead of MS in market cap. Yeah, that came before Apple made more revenue than MS, which was before Apple made more profit than MS, but both of those things happened in the 1.5 years since that article was released.

3) Apple did so well in the last quarters that they even beat MS for the fiscal year's profits: Apple's $25.922 billion v. MS's $ 23.15 billion. It's even more extreme when you look at Apple's $108.249 billion in revenue v. MS's $69.94 billion, which is a factor of MS's profit margins being much, much higher than Apple's due to the nature of a HW v. SW company, respectively.

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

1) It's a prediction, not a fact, that was given more than a 1.5 year lead time. A lot can change in that time frame. Just look at the 2006 to 2008.

2) You're stipulating that 50% is had from all 99% devices, which is also not implied in the article nor a fact.

3) Apple is a smartphone vendor. They have a premium product yet they still outsell any other vendor's brand in unit sales and make the most profit of any handset maker in the world. Samsung sold more units of all their brands in the last quarter with the iPhone 4 going over a year old, but you'd be remiss to think that will happen again this quarter.

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

2) You're stipulating that 50% is had from all 99% devices, which is also not implied in the article nor a fact.

3) Apple is a smartphone vendor. They have a premium product yet they still outsell any other vendor's brand in unit sales and make the most profit of any handset maker in the world. Samsung sold more units of all their brands in the last quarter with the iPhone 4 going over a year old, but you'd be remiss to think that will happen again this quarter.

If you scroll further down you will see the numbers for 2010 and 2011, Android is ahead in all. My point is that cheap sells which is evident by these numbers. I never said they were better I am simply saying that quality does not TRUMP cheap when it comes to over all figures. If you want further proof, look at MAC, the hardware is top notch, it only holds 9% of the market. The other 91% is occupied by cheap windows based PCs that people flock too by the millions everyday. Everyone of those individuals that buy the cheap PC could have been a MAC purchaser but decided for one reason or another they wanted less expensive.

1) There is nothing similar about Apple's position in the smartphone market today and Apple's position in the 'PC' market in the 80s.

2) You pulled up an article from May 26, 2010 when Apple jumped ahead of MS in market cap. Yeah, that came before Apple made more revenue than MS, which was before Apple made more profit than MS, but both of those things happened in the 1.5 years since that article was released.

I might agree with #2 but I find that there are many similarities between the Mac and Windows market as with iPad and the Tablet market in that, when Microsoft made Windows available to all manufacturers, those manufacturers marketed the hell out of it and "won." Apple is a one does all business, which is not a bad thing I actually think it's great, but will ultimately sell less than all those manufacturers combined.

Apple will always be the trendsetter, the leader that many will follow because it already has that reputation.

They aren't, only in the number of devices that being sold with Android OS installed, but it's not really a good comparison since 1) both Android and iOS have a healthy enough base to make such a comparison pointless in any real world terms, 2) and Apple is only one vendor. If Apple licensed their OSes then it would be fair, so why not compare a vendor to vendor. You cold at least say Samsung sold more units than Apple last quarter.

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If you want further proof, look at MAC, the hardware is top notch, it only holds 9% of the market. The other 91% is occupied by cheap windows based PCs.

1) I'll never understand the capitalization of Mac to MAC.

2) Apple was taking 1/3 of the world's 'PC' profits a few years back. I can't imagine that has down anything but go up since then.

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

grow up kids... they are both great devices. In practicality Fragmentation doesn't really mean shit to me. My 2 yo galaxy S can still play all the games and apps.

And the more I use the ipad, I am beginning to realize what this "walled garden" everyone is talking about. I can't even rearrange my icons my way... REALLY? WTF. That's just one of many issues in android, I can solve easily.

At this point, it's Windows for PC Android for Phones and Ipads for a tablet.

You know that you can rearrange the iocns by holding them down for 5 secs ?

This is a great addition to the tablet line up. It's going to be good for the industry because of the competitive pricing.

Amazon already has a very large portion of the ebook sales, and this will be a natural transition from their other devices.

I don't see what this has to do with fragmentation at all though. The nook color didn't "fragment" the platform. Apple just attacks people for not having the same business model, and it seems everyone goes back to the fragmentation point.

Pre-orders for the Kindle Fire were through the roof. In the first 5 days pre-orders were available, 250,000 Kindle Fires were sold. That's 2k per hour. I wouldn't be surprised at all to see this outsell the ipad2

I might agree with #2 but I find that there are many similarities between the Mac and Windows market as with iPad and the Tablet market in that, when Microsoft made Windows available to all manufacturers, those manufacturers marketed the hell out of it and "won." Apple is a one does all business, which is not a bad thing I actually think it's great, but will ultimately sell less than all those manufacturers combined.

Apple will always be the trendsetter, the leader that many will follow because it already has that reputation.

There were highly profitable PC vendors back then. Today there aren't very many profitable and I mean technically vendors who use Android OS. Pretty much all of them jumped on it because they were drowning. Now they have an unraveling life raft just like the PC vendors have had for the past decade as they race to the bottom except this time it's happened much, much faster due to the savviness of Apple in the market and differences in core business structures between MS and Google.

Remember MS sells their OS and so has a vested interest in propping their vendors as much as possible. Google just doesn't care and has yet to see a direct dime from the project.

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

They aren't, only in the number of devices that being sold with Android OS installed, but it's not really a good comparison since 1) both Android and iOS have a healthy enough base to make such a comparison pointless in any real world terms, 2) and Apple is only one vendor. If Apple licensed their OSes then it would be fair, so why not compare a vendor to vendor. You cold at least say Samsung sold more units than Apple last quarter.

1) I'll never understand the capitalization of Mac to MAC.

2) Apple was taking 1/3 of the world's 'PC' profits a few years back. I can't imagine that has down anything but go up since then.

Everyone is simply missing the point, cheap sells. It is really as simple as that. The fire is cheap and will work well for what it is and will probably sell very well. Everyone of those sells may have been a potential iPad sale, therefore it is a threat, solely on the fact that it is cheap and will more than likely sell well.

Thanks to both of you. I know what trump means. I somehow got the impression that it was used in the sense that quality is the decisive factor for people when deciding what to buy. Meaning that nobody ever buys anything else but the best quality product.

I would assume that quality, together with price, determine buyers behavior. I may be wrong.

The value proposition determines buyer behavior, but it's subjective.

Some people will find that an underpowered tablet is a great value because of the price, while others will find the iPad to be a better value despite the price.

Everyone is simply missing the point, cheap sells. It is really as simple as that.

You missed the point with your original comment. We all know that it's a pyramid where cheap items in the same market will outsell more expensive items in a unit-to-unit comparison. That's not new, it's also not the business most companies want to be in.

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

There were highly profitable PC vendors back then. Today there aren't very many profitable and I mean technically vendors who use Android OS. Pretty much all of them jumped on it because they were drowning. Now they have an unraveling life raft just like the PC vendors have had for the past decade as they race to the bottom except this time it's happened much, much faster due to the savviness of Apple in the market and differences in core business structures between MS and Google.

Remember MS sells their OS and so has a vested interest in propping their vendors as much as possible. Google just doesn't care and has yet to see a direct dime from the project.

Obviously every business model has been profitable in their own way. Microsoft sells the windows license for each device, and Google makes money via advetising revenue. Both companies have been extremely successful.

The Android business model allows for each company like Samsung and HTC to develop their own software layer on top of Android to tailor it to their needs, while still having it be compatible with the same Android ecosystem.

I might agree with #2 but I find that there are many similarities between the Mac and Windows market as with iPad and the Tablet market in that, when Microsoft made Windows available to all manufacturers, those manufacturers marketed the hell out of it and "won." Apple is a one does all business, which is not a bad thing I actually think it's great, but will ultimately sell less than all those manufacturers combined.

What similarities? That Apple is releasing a premium product in the iPad and that Amazon is releasing the Kindle Fire (in all likelihood at a loss) at a lower price? That alone does not even begin to replicate the circumstances between Mac and Windows of yesteryear. In fact, almost every key circumstance aside from price is different. One vital example which bears no resemblance to this parroted comparison is developer support.

That, and the Kindle Fire is not a good foundation for the growth of Android.

The true measure of a man is how he treats someone that can do him absolutely no good. Samuel Johnson

Remember MS sells their OS and so has a vested interest in propping their vendors as much as possible. Google just doesn't care and has yet to see a direct dime from the project.

I'm not sure that Google even cares to make any money off of Android directly. I always thought they were in it for the Google searches from the phones. On a related note: When Microsoft partnered with Motorola to put Bing on their Android phones, I bet that made Google mad. In fact, it will be interesting to see what happens with that agreement now that Google is buying Motorola.

Google makes money via advertising revenue is a fact, but yur argument is a fallacy because you've failed to show where Google makes a profit on Android's advertising revenue via apps and the browser. They've never released it and in the last quarterly they barely even mention this wonderful, profitable, all powerful OS. Why would they do that, ya' think?

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

You missed the point with your original comment. We all know that it's a pyramid where cheap items in the same market will outsell more expensive items in a unit-to-unit comparison. That's not new, it's also not the business most companies want to be in.

But because Apple currently has a large portion of the tablet market a unit to unit comparison is very important. The iPad has the market because they are all there was. A few have tried to get a foot hold but have not fared well. Now here comes Amazon with a inexpensive, well supported device. If it can get a foot hold in the market it will put a nice dent in iPad sales. My comments about "cheap sells" is in reference to comments that quality will always trump cheap when it comes to sales and that simply is not true:

Everyone is simply missing the point, cheap sells. It is really as simple as that. The fire is cheap and will work well for what it is and will probably sell very well. Everyone of those sells may have been a potential iPad sale, therefore it is a threat, solely on the fact that it is cheap and will more than likely sell well.

Cheap does indeed sell. The Fire will indeed eat away at some iPad sales. But cheap is not sufficient to disrupt an established market. Cheap must come along with the necessary bells and whistles to make the disruption viable, and the Fire does not fit the bill. Additionally, Amazon's business model for the Fire will be based on recuperating loss (or generating profit) on a device which does not account for this at the time of sale. This will translate into innovation shortfalls. Some people have eloquently expressed a few of the problems the Fire faces in disrupting the iPad. All I could find was one good article by Horace Deidu.

The true measure of a man is how he treats someone that can do him absolutely no good. Samuel Johnson

Cheap does indeed sell. The Fire will indeed eat away at some iPad sales. But cheap is not sufficient to disrupt an established market. Cheap must come along with the necessary bells and whistles to make the disruption viable, and the Fire does not fit the bill. Additionally, Amazon's business model for the Fire will be based on recuperating loss (or generating profit) on a device which does not account for this at the time of sale. This will translate into innovation shortfalls. Some people have eloquently expressed a few of the problems the Fire faces in disrupting the iPad. All I could find was one good article by Horace Deidu.

The point is so far missed here I am not even sure where to start. 1 - Any sale that goes to the Fire that could have gone to the iPad is a disruption to the iPad. 2 - Amazon is not trying to make money on this device, they are making money on content, period. Same with the Kindle. They know this and am pretty sure are accounting for it. 3 - If Amazon succeeds anywhere near the level it does with Kindle it will chizzle a nice little hole in iPads market share. Once that nut is cracked, others will follow further chizziling away at iPad sales. All of this is a major threat to Apple and they know it.

Google makes money via advertising revenue is a fact, but yur argument is a fallacy because you've failed to show where Google makes a profit on Android's advertising revenue via apps and the browser. They've never released it and in the last quarterly they barely even mention this wonderful, profitable, all powerful OS. Why would they do that, ya' think?

Google is an advertising company.

Google sells advertisements. They sell ads that they include on their search results. They sell ads that they include in your email. They sell ads that run on websites you visit. They sell ads that show up in the apps that you run. Google sells ads.

To sell ads you have to match advertisers with potential customers. The better you can do this -- the more relevant the ad is to the person viewing the ad -- the more likely that customer would be to act on that ad.

That's why they don't need to sell the hardware to make money. They're just getting the OS to spread like a virus. Which has worked as it's now the most popular phone OS.

And it's paying off. They have over 10 billion per year in income and over 57 billion in assets.

There are plenty of $99.00 smart phones out there running android, but people are lining up in the millions around the world for an iPhone 4S. Say what you want about price, quality will always trump that.

My guess is that the FreeGS will "sell" more than ever before in its history, and set new records.

Cheap does indeed sell. The Fire will indeed eat away at some iPad sales. But cheap is not sufficient to disrupt an established market. Cheap must come along with the necessary bells and whistles to make the disruption viable, and the Fire does not fit the bill. Additionally, Amazon's business model for the Fire will be based on recuperating loss (or generating profit) on a device which does not account for this at the time of sale. This will translate into innovation shortfalls. Some people have eloquently expressed a few of the problems the Fire faces in disrupting the iPad. All I could find was one good article by Horace Deidu.

Look at what Walmart has done to a lot of established markets. I view Amazon as somewhat like Walmart. They sell just about everything and usually at as good a price you can find and with no sales tax.

Decades of effort into tablets. Dozens of tablets at CES weeks before the Apple tablet was rumoured to debut.

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If it can get a foot hold in the market it will put a nice dent in iPad sales.

That's not necessarily true. It's only true if the customer was going to buy an iPad but instead decided to buy a Kindle Fire. I don't that scenario has being very common and just as dumb(cheap)phone users are moving to smartphones I think it's likely many of these dumb(cheap)tablet buyers will eventually want a smart-tablet. Amazon's tablet is fine for 7" because it's a much simpler device, but they will need a larger tablet if they want to take the iPad head one, where it's profit could actually be hurt.

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

The point is so far missed here I am not even sure where to start. 1 - Any sale that goes to the Fire that could have gone to the iPad is a disruption to the iPad. 2 - Amazon is not trying to make money on this device, they are making money on content, period. Same with the Kindle. They know this and am pretty sure are accounting for it. 3 - If Amazon succeeds anywhere near the level it does with Kindle it will chizzle a nice little hole in iPads market share. Once that nut is cracked, others will follow further chizziling away at iPad sales. All of this is a major threat to Apple and they know it.

You are not misunderstood; you are disagreed with.

If you'd like to disagree with the argument and article I presented to you I can share some thoughts, but as it stands, all you did was reiterate your belief.

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Originally Posted by TheShepherd

Look at what Walmart has done to a lot of established markets. I view Amazon as somewhat like Walmart. They sell just about everything and usually at as good a price you can find and with no sales tax.

There is a lot of truth to this, but I'm not sure how it applies to Apple. Apple is not, say, Circuit City. Maybe you can elaborate? In the markets where Apple participates they're either the price-competitive large content solution company (e.g. music) [compare to Walmart or Amazon], or they're well established (e.g. Macs are high-end products and are growing in market share faster than Windows; the iPhone and iPad are competitively priced premium products which provide a premium experience and are doing very well in their individual categories). The modern-day smartphone and tablet markets are still maturing so there is plenty of opportunity for another company to disrupt Apple, but they are at the top of their game, and are the leading innovators in both of these markets, so it isn't going to be a trivial matter.

The true measure of a man is how he treats someone that can do him absolutely no good. Samuel Johnson

That's not necessarily true. It's only true if the customer was going to buy an iPad but instead decided to buy a Kindle Fire. I don't that scenario has being very common and just as dumb(cheap)phone users are moving to smartphones I think it's likely many of these dumb(cheap)tablet buyers will eventually want a smart-tablet. Amazon's tablet is fine for 7" because it's a much simpler device, but they will need a larger tablet if they want to take the iPad head one, where it's profit could actually be hurt.

The Kindle Fire, at the current rate at which it is selling, will have 2.5 million preorders in 12 days.

The Kindle Fire, at the current rate at which it is selling, will have 2.5 million preorders in 12 days.

And you think that's not going to put a dent in ipad sales?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but that statistic was based on sustaining the initial rate of pre-orders from the initial launch up until the release date. Not only is much of that left to assumption and numbers which did not come from Amazon, I'm not sure where the 12 days thing came from? Are you referring to the release date?

I don't think it can be argued that the Kindle Fire is not going to cannibalize any iPad salesit will. I just don't see any strong arguments for it disrupting the iPad, and that's a very different thing. And we're talking about two very different devices.

The true measure of a man is how he treats someone that can do him absolutely no good. Samuel Johnson

grow up kids... they are both great devices. In practicality Fragmentation doesn't really mean shit to me. My 2 yo galaxy S can still play all the games and apps.

And the more I use the ipad, I am beginning to realize what this "walled garden" everyone is talking about. I can't even rearrange my icons my way... REALLY? WTF. That's just one of many issues in android, I can solve easily.

At this point, it's Windows for PC Android for Phones and Ipads for a tablet.

you speaking about your own setup or people in general? frankly i don't like malware, annoyware, viruses, patches-never-ending that always require a reboot, bizarre spinning lasso that won't stop, slow response times and the general 'let's sell 'passable' sh*t to anyone we can sucker into it' that MS deals in.

I don't see what this has to do with fragmentation at all though. The nook color didn't "fragment" the platform.

It does in as much as the original nook will not likely ever be a ICS device. Hopefully the Nook 2 might be.

Amazon forked android with the Fire. It's a modified 2.x codebase. As devs move to the 4.x platform for tablets you'll see a need to support two tablet versions despite the fact that essentially you can ignore 3.x tablets since they hardly sold and more will likely upgrade to 4.x.

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Pre-orders for the Kindle Fire were through the roof. In the first 5 days pre-orders were available, 250,000 Kindle Fires were sold. That's 2k per hour. I wouldn't be surprised at all to see this outsell the ipad2

I would. I doubt Amazon will make as many in the same timeframe. If they are making money it's not much on each unit and they don't have the same economies of scale or supply chain that Apple enjoys. Quanta isn't a charity and they have their own bottom line to look after.

I just want to comment on the analyst's 30 million iPhone est for the quarter....

This is going to be a HUGE HUGE quarter. There is a good chance revenues will exceed $40B and profit of $10B. The rollout of the 4S across so many countries so fast is an amazing feat. The backlog of phones in the US is easily 2 to 3 weeks based on my experiences

Apple has a shot at shipping 50MM iOS devices in the quarter. Pretty amazing

Then there is Amazon, with it's 115 PE Ratio. Barely profitable the last two years. They are pretty much fucked if this Fire bet does not work. It will set them back another two years

Bezos is Jobs without the product ability or consumer sense. God, just look at the Amazon.com website design if you want to puke

Windows survivor - after a long, epic and painful struggle. Very long AAPL

If you'd like to disagree with the argument and article I presented to you I can share some thoughts, but as it stands, all you did was reiterate your belief.

There is a lot of truth to this, but I'm not sure how it applies to Apple. Apple is not, say, Circuit City. Maybe you can elaborate? In the markets where Apple participates they're either the price-competitive large content solution company (e.g. music) [compare to Walmart or Amazon], or they're well established (e.g. Macs are high-end products and are growing in market share faster than Windows; the iPhone and iPad are competitively priced premium products which provide a premium experience and are doing very well in their individual categories). The modern-day smartphone and tablet markets are still maturing so there is plenty of opportunity for another company to disrupt Apple, but they are at the top of their game, and are the leading innovators in both of these markets, so it isn't going to be a trivial matter.

Don't bother with the fandroid marketing trolls. They will soon disappear with the sales numbers come out showing Kindle Fire has failed miserably. Amazon has no clue how to do software, no one wants a seven inch ipad clone, the processor and graphics are very weak, there is no software available in the amazon itunes clone app store, and good luck getting support on these cheapo cloner tablets.

"While the pricing at $199 looks disruptive for what seems to be the iPad's most important rising challenge, the Amazon Fire -- it is important to note that it could fuel further fragmentation in the tablet market -- given it represents yet another platform," Reitzes wrote. "While compatible with Android, the Apps work with Amazon products.

Fix your title AI and learn how to read!!

Apple said it "...could fuel further fragmentation in the tablet market..." Not "..will further fragment Android."